26 November 19
Very bad fundraising numbers for November - very bad. We seriously need a few good days of donations. One of those days is Thanksgiving, a day we won’t even do any fundraising.
This is a bad situation.
We need some help.
Marc Ash
Founder, Reader Supported News
Founder, Reader Supported News
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 26 November 19 It's Live on the HomePage Now: Reader Supported News Sure, I'll make a donation!
Ryan Bort | Lindsey Graham Is a Coward, Exhibit 39204
 Ryan Bort, Rolling Stone Bort writes: "Like his Republican colleagues, Graham has been unable to address the substance of the impeachment inquiry, instead opting to bash the process and indulge conspiracy theories about Deep State efforts to take down the president."
On Friday morning, Graham was confronted on Capitol Hill by Jeff Key, who engaged the senator about as respectfully as possible. Graham couldn’t handle it. Here’s the exchange:
KEY: “I see how you’re berated in the press and I honestly believe that you believe in our democracy.”
GRAHAM: “I do.”
KEY: “I’m a Marine, I went to Iraq. I believe as I believe that you do that President Trump is not acting in accordance to his oath, the oath that you took and I did to defend the Constitution.”
GRAHAM: [unintelligible stammering]
KEY: “You took an oath.”
GRAHAM: “Yeah I did, I don’t agree with you, I gotta go.”
Graham then abruptly turned his back on Key and disappeared behind a closed door. “Is that it?” Key said as Graham retreated. “That’s it,” the senator said before closing the door behind him.
Like his Republican colleagues, Graham has been unable to address the substance of the impeachment inquiry, instead opting to bash the process and indulge conspiracy theories about Deep State efforts to take down the president.
Sadly, his deflection efforts aren’t limited to cable TV hits. On Thursday, Graham, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, launched a probe into Joe Biden’s relationship with Ukraine. The investigation comes a month after he was pressured to begin one by Trump and his allies. He refrained from doing so at the time, he explained to the Washington Post, because didn’t want to “turn the Senate into a circus.”
 Donald McGahn. (photo: IJR)
Former White House Counsel Donald McGahn Must Comply With House Subpoena, Judge Rules
Spencer S. Hsu and Ann E. Marimow, The Washington Post Excerpt: "Former Trump White House counsel Donald McGahn must comply with a House subpoena, a federal court ruled Monday, finding that 'no one is above the law' and that top presidential advisers cannot ignore congressional demands for information."
EXCERPT:
U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson of Washington found no basis for a White House claim that the former counsel is “absolutely immune from compelled congressional testimony,” setting the stage for a historic separation-of-powers confrontation between the executive and legislative branches of the government.
The House Judiciary Committee went to court in August to enforce its subpoena of McGahn, whom lawmakers consider the “most important” witness in whether President Trump obstructed justice in special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election.
Trump blocked McGahn’s appearance, saying McGahn had cooperated with Mueller’s probe, was a key presidential adviser, and could not be forced to answer questions or turn over documents. Jackson disagreed, ruling that if McGahn wants to refuse to testify, such as by invoking executive privilege, he must do so in person and question by question.
The Justice Department’s claim to “unreviewable absolute testimonial immunity,” Jackson wrote, “is baseless, and as such, cannot be sustained.”
The judge ordered McGahn to appear before the House committee and said her conclusion was “inescapable” because a subpoena demand is part of the legal system — not the political process — and “per the Constitution, no one is above the law.”
“However busy or essential a presidential aide might be, and whatever their proximity to sensitive domestic and national-security projects, the President does not have the power to excuse him or her from taking an action that the law requires,” Jackson wrote in a 118-page opinion. “Fifty years of say so within the Executive branch does not change that fundamental truth.”
 Google staff. (photo: Tolga Akmen/AFP/Getty Images)
Google Fires Four Workers, Including Staffer Who Protested Company's Border Patrol Ties
Gerrit De Vynck, Mark Bergen and Ryan Gallagher, Bloomberg Excerpt: "Google fired four employees for what the technology giant said were violations of its data-security policies, escalating tension between management and activist workers at a company once revered for its open corporate culture." READ MORE  Tuesday's statewide walkout of teachers in Indiana could lead to an illegal strike. (photo: Central Indiana DSA/Facebook)
Why 15,000 Indiana Teachers Just Walked Off the Job
Jeff Schuhrke, In These Times Schuhrke writes: "More than 15,000 teachers and supporters are expected to rally at the Republican-controlled statehouse for today's Red for Ed Day of Action."
EXCERPT:
Teachers are demanding raises to their salaries, which average around $50,000—well below the national average of $60,000—but can be as low as $30,000 for new hires. After years of state budget surpluses, Indiana now has $2.3 billion in reserves. At the same time, Indiana teachers have seen the smallest salary increases in the nation, receiving an overall increase of only $6,900 between 2002 and 2017.
Rather than simply tapping into the state’s massive reserves to pay for teacher raises, Republican lawmakers say that any salary increases would have to be paired with cuts to other school expenses such as administration and transportation.
Earlier this year, Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb agreed to a one-time allocation of $150 million to pay down schools’ pension liability, freeing up $70 million per year in the school districts’ budgets. While Holcomb framed the move as a roundabout way to provide teachers raises, schools were not required to use the savings for salary increases—and apparently haven’t done so.
 Rachel, 34, holds her son at home in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. (photo: Shooting Without Bullets/Guardian UK)
America Has an Infant Mortality Crisis. Meet the Black Doulas Trying to Change That
Nina Lakhani, Guardian UK Lakhani writes: "A report earlier this year from CDC found that over 22,000 babies died before their first birthday in 2017. But the racial disparities tell their own story: black women's babies died at a rate of 10.97 per 1,000 births - more than twice the rate for white, Asian or Hispanic women."
EXCERPT:
And in Ohio – home to Cleveland – the situation is even worse: the mortality rate for black infants ( 15.1 per 1,000) was around three times as high as the rate for white infants. Black women are also three to four times more likely to die in childbirth in America than white women, again regardless of their socio-economic status.
It’s this terrifying reality that persuaded Rachel, who suffered a miscarriage before becoming pregnant with her son last year, that she needed an African American doula by her side during the pregnancy, delivery and after the birth.
“I was scared … I wanted someone who understood my history as a black woman to be with me during the birth and advocate for me in the hospital system where we are dismissed and not heard,” said Rachel. “Even Serena [Williams] was dismissed.”
(After giving birth in 2017, medical staff initially dismissed the tennis star’s concerns about life threatening blood clots, a condition which almost killed her in 2011.)
‘Black babies account for a third of births, but three-quarters of infant deaths’
 The revelation comes days ahead of a general election in Dominica on December 6, in which Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit is up for re-election. (photo: WIC)
Caribbean Officials Linked to Diplomatic Passport Sale
Al Jazeera Excerpt: "Al Jazeera's Investigative Unit exposes politicians in Dominica and Grenada willing to accept secret campaign contributions from wealthy foreign businessmen in exchange for diplomatic passports." READ MORE  A summer 2019 demonstration for the Practical Farmers of Iowa was held at Paul and Karen Mugge's organic row-crop farm. They showed how to install a beneficial prairie insect habitat. (photo: Practical Farmers of Iowa)
Meet the Farmers Putting Politics Aside to Address Climate Change
Lynn Freehill-Maye, YES! Magazine Freehill-Maye writes: "Welcoming everybody to his farm on a searing August afternoon, Ron Rosmann lets the pleasantries go for 12 minutes before getting to the heart of things."
EXCERPTS:
“What are we experiencing?” he asks the group. “Warmer temperatures, more rainfall, warmer nights, 10 years in a row of cold, wet springs. I’m getting more and more nervous.”
It has increased annual precipitation in Iowa at least 8% over the past century, according to the state Department of Natural Resources. And the effects keep multiplying.
The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had just warned that soil is being lost up to 100 times faster than it is forming.
The field day includes a hayrack tour of the Rosmanns’ pesticide-free fields. On one section, turnips are planted as a cover crop, and volunteer oats and barley also pop up. Down the road, the group visits naturally ventilated “hoop house” pig shelters: metal arcs covered with greenhouse plastic, in which deep cornstalk bedding decreases manure runoff risk. They stand in front of long compost mounds, where butterflies land as Rosmann describes how to balance straw and manure.
Along with fellow practical farmers members, they’re approaching agriculture more regeneratively: focusing on soil health, planting cover crops, reducing chemicals, and minimizing the runoff that contributes to the Gulf of Mexico’s fishless “dead zone.” In the age of climate change, their sharing of experience is increasingly vital.
It begins to rain, and from his Chevy Silverado, Peterson surveys the cover-crop mix of buckwheat, sunflower, radishes, and turnips he’s growing on 50 acres to help manage soil erosion. Each 1% increase in soil organic matter, scientists say, helps soil hold up to 20,000 gallons more water per acre.
The soil here is healthier now, Peterson says, and will yield more corn later. The field’s traditional wet spots haven’t been as big or lasting. The winter wheat will anchor the topsoil. As he talks, three geese alight. Lately, Peterson has seen three coveys of quail, and up to seven pheasants in a one day. “I see that as a sign of overall farm health,” he says.
Rows of veggies stand at attention around them. O’Brien is just as proud of her sustainable high tunnels. Working like greenhouses, they require irrigation but extend the growing seasons. O’Brien installed the hoop shelters on tracks in 2013. “This is the way vegetable farmers are going to be mitigating climate change, with high tunnels,” she ways. “It’s going to protect the soil.”
Pesticide drift is a hot-button issue with the farmers. During the Rosmanns’ field day, a crop-duster buzzed overhead. “Incoming!” farmers pointed. “Hope it’s not gonna spray us,” one muttered.
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